RE: New Harp from Tombo

["jross38" <jross38@xxxxxxxxx>]

>Why will these harps not be available in the US?Doesn't make sense.The
market is way >to big here to ignore.The Japanese aren't that dumb.

"The Japanese", meaning Tombo in this case, have absolutely no control
over what Tombo harps are imported to the US.  Lee Oskar has exclusive
distribution rights to all Tombo makes and models in the US.  When he
first started importing his harps, IIRC, he also imported all of Tombo's
other models, such as the chromatic and orchestral harps (bass, etc...).
Unfortunately this proved unprofitable, so he ended up just importing
the one model that sold well--his own design and brand.  This has been
the case for years, and no other Tombo harps are currently available for
retail in the US.

Fortunately there is a grey market of self-imported harps, and that is
well and duly maintained by the excellent Norman, who first told of
these new Areo(?) metal-bodied harps.  As with any Tombo instrument that
is not a Lee Oskar, or in general any harp not available in the US, the
saying is quite true: you can get one from Norman.  :)

(no sales pitch, just the truth, as I've ordered things from him which
are not available in the US)

>I mean,there really isn't any other harp like the  meisterklasse
available here at a >comparable price.

I'd suggest you look at the Suzuki Promaster.  Not a perfect harp by any
means, it is still one of the best off-the-shelf harps there is, IMO,
and I far prefer it to the MS Meisterklasse.  In many ways the Promaster
is more similar to the old HM(handmade) Meisterklasse, which, as one
friend said, is when the Meisterklasse really was the meisterklasse.  :)
The Promaster has an aluminum body, nickel or chrome-plated covers
(probably chrome, but I'm not sure) and nickel or chrome-plated
reedplates, with replacements available.  On newer models the reeds are
often welded on rather than riveted, which is annoying, but still,
unless you intend to replace individual reeds rather than whole
reed-plates, it shouldn't be a problem (and even then you _can_ replace
welded on reeds, as per Brendan Powers' instructions, but it sure sounds
like an annoying process).

Hope this helps.

Oh, one last thing, if you could reformat so that you are posting in
plain text rather than HTML, that would be much preferred, as harp-l
doesn't work as well with HTML text.




 ()()   JR "Bulldogge" Ross (waiting for AAA to jump-start my car)
()  ()  & Snuffy, too:)
`---'